Bipartisan approach to combat climate change is stuck in Congress

The U.S. government office that oversees federally funded climate research has recommended studies into two areas of geoengineering research, marking the first time scientists in the executive branch have formally called for studies in the controversial field.
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — A proposal mired in Congress could go a long way to curbing the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change — and Republicans from fossil fuel producing states are helping lead the effort.

The bill would extend and expand a tax credit to reward companies for practicing “carbon capture and storage,” an expensive process supporters say can extract up to 90% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from the use of fossil fuels in producing electricity and other industrial processes.

The proposal to extend and expand the tax credit, known as the FUTURE Act, boasts a notable group of bipartisan co-sponsors in the Senate including one of its most conservative members, Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming, and one of its most progressive, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

“How often do you see Whitehouse and Barrasso agree?,” said Kurt Waltzer, managing director of the Clean Air Task Force, an advocacy group fighting climate change that supports the proposal.

But the proposal, among a number of tax provisions that seem to enjoy broad support on Capitol Hill, has been stalled in a congressional logjam over immigration that’s also slowed progress on government funding, disaster aid and health assistance. The provisions are expiring, and are referred to as "tax extenders."

A spokeswoman for Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Harch, R-Utah, said discussions on how to advance the extenders through Congress “are ongoing.”

President Trump’s rollback of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan rule aimed at reducing casrbon emissions and the decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord have environmental activists scrambling for other ways to take on climate change.

There aren't many options because Congress is controlled by Republicans and President Trump has called global warming a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese government for competitive advantage.

And there's not much time: NASA last week announced that 2017 was the second-warmest on record.

In this political environment carbon capture and storage has emerged as a viable solution.

Under the process, carbon emissions produced by power plants and other heavy industry are contained and injected deep into the ground where saline rock formations can store the gas for centuries. The process is capable of removing carbon that exists in the atmosphere now though at a prohibitive cost.

That aspect has attracted the support of Senate Democrats such as Whitehouse and Cory Booker of New Jersey who are ardent environmentalists.

The technology is not new as energy companies have used it to for decades to extract hard-to-reach pockets of oil and natural gas. The carbon essentially acts as a lubricant to free up the oil, a boon to business.

That aspect has drawn the backing of energy-state Republicans like Barrasso and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.

In Texas, the independent power company NRG Energy last year completed a $1 billion venture known as Petra Nova that's become the world’s largest post-combustion system for capturing carbon at a power plant.

Petra Nova separates more than 90% of the carbon dioxide from 240 megawatts of coal-fired power at a generating plant near Houston. It injects the captured gas into the ground to extract more crude.

But the use of the process has been limited by its high price tag. Carbon capture is only going to succeed if its readily available and affordable, objectives the revamped tax credit seeks to accomplish, said Waltzer with the Clean Air Task Force.

“If we’re going to get these kinds of technologies applied not just in the U.S. but in countries like India, like China, we’re going to need to get them deployed and see the costs come down," he said. "We think (carbon capture) is a crucial component of getting to a zero carbon world.”

The FUTURE Act, which has the backing of 25 senators and 44 House members would increase the amount of the credit for each ton of carbon extracted, eliminate the 75 metric ton limit for new projects, and allow companies to take advantage of the credit if they start building before Jan. 1, 2024.

Waltzer said the last provision is especially important because lenders would be more willing to finance carbon capture and storage projects knowing the government was investing in the project. He compared the proposed credit favorably to the tax breaks Congress granted in the 1990s that elevated the fortunes of the wind industry.

Not everyone in the environmental community shares Waltzer's enthusiasm for the technology.

The Sierra Club has deep concerns that pursuing carbon capture will elbow out energy sources such as wind and solar power that have no carbon footprint.

"Coal mining and the waste created by (carbon capture and storage) projects are harmful to communities." said John Coequyt, Sierra Club Global Climate Policy Director. "Clean energy is cheaper, cleaner, and widely favored by the American public and should be given consideration over any coal project."

George Peridas, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, agreed the technology won't make fossil fuels clean but it can "dramatically" reduce the the threat carbon emissions pose to the planet.

"For this technology to contribute meaningfully to mitigating climate change, the world needs to build lots more (carbon capture and storage projects)," he wrote in a blog in July that touted the FUTURE Act. "Why has not this happened yet? In simple terms, because the right policies are not yet in place that will lead to further cost reductions in the technology."